On the Outside Looking In
by snakes and lions unite
Summary: Everyone believes Salazar Slytherin was evil, except for those who try to further his ideals... but thousand years is a long time, and everything fades with time. For though Slytherin may have been dark, there is no black and white, only shades of grey.


**A/N**

**This is an independent one-shot, but it will be incorporated into both of my AU's later on. **

**It always annoyed me that no one actually thinks about the historical time period when saying how evil Salazar Slytherin was because he wouldn't let muggle borns into his house.**

**Not that I'm saying he was the good guy or anything... having Gryffindor as a selfish, selfrightous fool is just about as bad as having Salazar completley evil.**

**I'm pretty sure that Hogwarts is about a thousand years old. That puts its founding smack in the middle of the European Dark Ages. There is no civilization. There are illiterate peasants whose understanding of anything is non-existent. **

**Strangely, shortly after starting this one-shot, we covered this time period in history. So I'm playing around with the history a bit, and going with the assumption that major events in the wizarding world are coincident with major events in the muggle world (an example of that being Gridenwald/World War II).**

**I hope it makes sense without going too indepth and subjecting you to too much history. **

**On The Outside Looking In**

Two men and two women sat around a table in the headmasters' office of Hogwarts.

One of the wizards was wearing emerald robes with a silver snake attached to the front. He was fairly young, the youngest of the four. To his left sat a witch in blue robes, with a silver raven on the front of the robes, to his right a witch in golden yellow, with an obsidian badger. Across from him was a wizard in red, with a golden lion.

...

Salazar Slytherin stood up from the table, fury etched into his face.

"No. Are you even listening to what I am saying?"

Helga Hufflepuff rose and gently lay a hand on his shoulder "Of course we are. But Sal, you're being incredibly unfair to the muggle borns about this… they have as much of a right to magic as we do. It's not reasonable for you to deny this of them; they were born with magic in their blood equal to ours."

She spoke in a placating tone of voice, but Salazar was only enraged further. He knocked her hand off his shoulder, and said cuttingly.

"I see you haven't been listening. Not to a single word I have said. But that is not what bothers me the most. I have long since accustomed myself to the three of you siding against me. That is not unusual. My teaching the Dark Arts against your wishes opened me up to that sort of suspicion.

Now you mistake cunning for viciousness, ambition for greed, and you denounce actions that are no worse than yours, but for the fact that I refuse to lie to myself and claim that my actions are to benefit someone else, and so in your narrow mindedness, classify me as evil.

I admit it was a mistake teaching the Dark Arts, if only because it broke the fragile trust we had between us. But this is another matter entirely, and you must listen to me."

He slammed his hand down against the table. Rowena and Helga both flinched, while Godric started to rise. Salazar gestured sharply with his hand.

"SIT! I am not finished yet. You will _not_ interrupt before I am through. I had put aside my differences; I had put aside my quarrels, in an attempt to build this school. I did not collaborate with you because I could not manage by myself. Founding this school was my idea. Have you forgotten that I approached you with this idea? I could have done it myself. It still would have been the best school in Britain-"

Godric stood. "But you did ask us, Salazar, and you offered us a position as your equals, with equal say in what happens in this castle. Going back on your word now? The same way you did when you fought us about the teaching and learning of Dark Arts, and ignored our wishes in the matter when we decided to ban it?"

Godric's tone was short and mocking, a challenge.

Salazar almost paused. This was not the right time to have this conversation, not when the other three were still angry at him for teaching the Dark Arts to his students. Normally they would be listening to him without comment until he was finished; he couldn't think of one other disagreement, not even the argument about Dark Arts, which had involved one of them insulting him, mocking him.

But he couldn't back down now. It was a crucial moment. If he succeeded at this, if they did not suspect, he would do whatever it took to win back their trust. If he failed, if one of them knew what he knew about not training the muggleborns, then he would have to leave the school. They would not forgive him of this.

Salazar drew his wand, pointed it steadily at Godric, "I have told you once to sit, and I tell you again to sit. No, I am not going back on my word this time. I stand by what I promised that this castle belongs to us all now. And I stand by what I said a few moments ago. I could have founded this school on my own. It would have easily been the best school in Britain. However, with the three of you adding your power and knowledge, this school has a chance of being the greatest in Europe, perhaps even in the world. But we have left the original subject, muggle-borns-"

Godric stood up, and interrupted again. "You are the heir of one of the oldest pure-blood lines left in Britain today, the heir to one of the few surviving lines of wizards who could trace themselves to the noble families of Rome. You simply cannot tolerate the idea that someone born with no name of importance could ever match your skills-"

Salazar, in a quick and fluid motion, cast a spell silently. Ropes bound Godric to the chair before he could react.

"Is that what you think? Do you know me at all? I don't remember flaunting the purity of my blood as, not once. I referenced how far back my family goes, perhaps, when arguing for the Dark Arts, using books from the family library to prove there is no danger as long they are used in moderation. That is it. I have not insulted you about your own blood. In fact, I don't even know your lineage details, nor do I care."

Outwardly he showed no emotion, but on the inside he cringed a little. If he had known how seriously the other three, especially Godric, would take his usage of the Dark Arts, he wouldn't have. He had intended to prove a point with it, to show that he could study it and practice it in moderation, but it had backfired on him.

He paused, and eyed everyone in the room. Rowena was staring at him without emotion, the only one who was even remotely listening to him. Helga was glancing concernedly at Godric, who kept breathing in shallow breaths and twitching his fingers in an apparent attempt to bring circulation back to his fingers.

Salazar snorted to himself. He knew how tight that spell made ropes; Godric _was _in pain, but he was capable of enduring twice as much without even a flinch or a flicker of discomfort, when it suited his pride. Like the time with the dragon; Godric was three-quarters dead after, and would have insisted on not getting medical treatment if Salazar hadn't knocked him out with a sleeping spell when his back was turned. But now some mild discomfort and he was simply _dying_.

Looked like even the bravest and most noble had some cunning when it suited them, not that Godric would ever admit that. But it was an excellent distraction, especially for Helga. As long as he was still tied up, only Rowena would be listening to him, and even then she wouldn't be giving him her full attention.

Something was off about Rowena... the way she looked at him seemed colder than usual. Probably was upset that this bickering was keeping her from her latest research project.

He sighed. In another quick motion, the ropes fell off. His voice hard, he said, "Next person to speak before I am through will get to see how much pain liberal usage of the Dark Arts can cause. You overruled me on the matter of those Dark Arts; I wish I had realized that on this subject you would be stubborn and I would have saved myself the trouble of fighting. I admit _again_, I lied, and taught my students the Dark Arts in secret, an even bigger mistake than the first, as it broke the trust we had, however tentative. But this is an altogether different subject now."

Godric looked like he was about to speak, but changed his mind when he met Salazar's gaze.

"Hogwarts is the only school in Britain, and the rest of Europe has what, three, maybe four others. The ministry of magic is younger than this school, and not half as well established.

My family is, as you yourself said, descended from the wizarding families of Rome. I grew up with stories of an empire that once was; of flourishing schools and a wizarding population that is three times the present. You know how expansive my personal library is, you know that my knowledge of history outstrips even Rowena's.

The reason the wizarding world collapsed along with the muggle was because we bound ourselves too closely to the muggles.

When the barbarians came, we the wizards were divided and fought among ourselves, over whether we should support the Roman Empire, our home, or let it be conquered, since the muggle world was not our concern. That was nearly our downfall. You think we live in comfort, civilized compared to the muggles around us, but it seems you have forgotten what the wizarding world was like at its prime.

Have you read those books, heard the stories? There are thousands of existing spells, but in the past hundred years, how many have been invented? A dozen and all of those by us. This will perhaps be remembered as a time of great invention for British wizards, but most of the "new spells" that have been created during this time are simply ones that had been forgotten and rediscovered.

Do you know why the wizards had a golden age at the same time the muggles did? We bound ourselves to them, depended on them."

Godric could keep silent no longer, his voice a snarl, "So now you are supporting the muggles? How strange, I clearly remember you claiming less than an ten minutes ago that you believed that we shouldn't let them come to Hogwarts."

Another Salazar flicked his wrist quickly and decisively.

"I have asked for silence and I have demanded silence. And you still refuse to listen. I have warned you once, and I warn you again. I have had enough."

Silence.

"Do not try to speak again. I believe you will not enjoy the consequences."

Godric opened his mouth. Salazar smiled a cold smile that didn't reach his eyes. Godric paled, and closed his mouth, eyeing Salazar with resentment.

Salazar didn't even have to try to keep himself from genuinely smiling, but the desire was there never the less. He hadn't even cast a spell; that was the ideal of his house. He didn't need brute force; Dark Arts were for emergencies only. It was a flick of a wrist and two sentences without a spell behind them that held all the power. That was the worst part of having to take about a fourth of the students. The ones that had the true gift, the cunning and cleverness, were so rare and far in between. If he could, he would take two or three students a year, or even one on an off year.

Having to choose others to let into his house was a difficult decision, one that taken him a long time to make. The problem was the other people, the ones that would be good second choices, all fit Helga's house (loyalty made good followers, as did hard work) or Rowena's (she was shrewd enough, but a good many of the people in her house were just _asking _to be used). There were very few Gryffindors that he would want in his house, but rare few that would fit his house would not simply be worthy followers, but ideal Slytherin leaders, if they were given the right circumstances.

But no, already they shied away from Slytherins reputation for darkness. It would get worse as time went on, leaving his house with the rare few who fit his ideals perfectly. The rest would be less than mediocre, mistaking pettiness and greed for ambition, clouding his values from the inside.

Still, there was nothing to be done. All he could do was hope that his protégées made the best of what he had provided them with. Petty and greedy people had the bonus of being fairly easy to manipulate... good practice to begin with. After all, if they played their cards right, they should eventually be able to make good use of the people in other houses. As long as a few people remembered what being Slytherin truly meant, and kept those with overly sadistic tendencies under control.

Salazar had finally reached the point he had been trying to make the whole discussion.

"I was talking about _then_. To show that it is not the blood I object too. That I believe them to be intelligent in their own right... an example of that being the plumbing in this school, which I designed, was based on the Roman aqueducts. But even with that, our golden age ended because of them. They unintentionally ruined our society along with their own.

But even then, at the height of muggle achievement, magical children were raised in our world.

Did you know that during those times, in those Golden Days, they had spells to detect accidental magic throughout the entire Roman Empire? They could identify children with magic by the time they were 7 or 8 at the latest... those that showed signs later were deemed too weak and ignored. Those children were taken away from their families and raised in the wizarding world, not allowed to see their parents ever again.

By the time they were eleven, and their magic was developed enough to start learning spells, there was no obvious difference between those born of pureblood and those not. Here, we do not know that magic, do not have those spells. We must wait for their magical maturity before we can find them... No, actually at the present moment, we can't find muggle borns at all. We need to spend large sums of time and money, neither of which we have, in order to create the spells necessary to detect them at all.

The best we can hope to do is find them by the time they are eleven, when the must enter immediately into the wizarding world.

They will enter Hogwarts not knowing how to read or write. They do not know anything about the world, they are beyond ignorant. They are filthy, disease-ridden and have no concept of sanitation. By eleven, many will have grown too attached to their parents to willingly sever all ties with them. Their parents would not willingly allow their children to go to a school of magic, not the narrow minded superstitious peasants that are. The children themselves will have absorbed the negative views towards magic, and be afraid of their own magic, convinced that they are evil, possessed by demons.

And all this at an enormous cost as well... the muggles have little to no money, even if they were willing to pay. We have no place to put them over the summer, without added cost, and if we send them back home we are weakening their bond to this world and binding them to theirs. That is if their superstitious relatives do not attempt to kill them over the summer, fearing their powers.

Our lack of independence was destructive enough in Rome, when Muggle society had something to offer, when they at least attempted to rise above their own filth.

Now? To tell you the truth, I am impressed they haven't all died off. They have no means of transportation, no means of communication, and so few people know how to read it's not even possible to give a percentage. They live in such squalor; one would assume that they would have all long ago died of disease and contamination. "

That is the world you want us to stand by, the world that you want us to merge with our own?"

He smiled, now. Godric looked sheepish, almost uncertain why he wanted to have muggleborns in the school in the first place. Helga looked guilty, thinking about tearing families apart, for no reason. It was Rowena that worried him; he could tell nothing from her expression.

A flick of the wrist at Godric. He flinched, before Salazar said, "There. You are free to speak now."

Salazar was surprised at who spoke before Godric had a chance to open his mouth. Rowena usually sided with him. She had the brains, and unlike most of her protégées, she had a fair amount of shrewdness as well. The only thing she was lacking was the ruthlessness.

"You are hiding something from us... a crucial piece of information that you forgot to mention. An oversight, I'm sure."

Rowena spoke softly but clearly, her voice and inflections a more musical imitation of Salazar's own, sarcasm dripping from it.

Salazar flinched, hoping that Rowena didn't know what he knew. She must have found out something else that he was hiding, something that he had forgotten, something minor.

The books that mentioned it were far and in between and none giving much significance to it. She couldn't have possibly found one. He held his breath as she continued.

"You know, far better than I do, what the cost of that would be for those muggles. You speak as if you mean them no harm, as if they would be happier staying in their little world, ignorant, not separated forcibly from their families. As if those Roman muggle-borns, the weak ones, lived happy lives never knowing they had magic."

Salazar knew she knew, at that moment, the secret that he had hoped no one would realize. The fact that would destroy his argument for Godric and Helga, and most probably for Rowena as well. Or at least she was angry because he was withholding information.

"There is an interesting fact about magic, one that is rarely known, since almost all people that know they have magic use it frequently. And when it happens to the occasional muggleborn that does not receive training, it is rarely noted. Muggles die for all sorts of reasons, after all."

He was doomed, he knew that. Godric and Helga would never accept him again. Even Rowena would no longer trust him. He couldn't deny knowing. Most likely the book Rowena found that knowledge in was from his own collection.

He knew in that moment he had to leave. Right now he couldn't remember what had caused him teach the Dark Arts in the first place. Certainly, there was nothing wrong with learning them, per say, but if he hadn't broken that promise, there would still be a chance that the others would trust him after this. Now, if he stayed, he would further divide the houses. If he left, there was still a chance that the other three would not take their anger at him out on his students.

Godric and Helga both looked horrified, looking between Salazar and Rowena disbelievingly. He could easily read their expressions; they were trying to imagine where this conversation could be going besides the obvious. Even though they distrusted him after the whole Dark Arts fiasco, they didn't want to believe that he could be that callous, that cruel.

Rowena spoke the final damning words. "The muggleborns, the ones you refuse to train, will be doomed to die. Their magic will eat them up from the inside, fighting to get out, be used. Within a few years, they will be dead, in the most horrible agony imaginable. You wish sentence a dozen children a year to death.

Do not pretend you do not know about it, the book I found it in was one I saw you reading."

Helga still looked as if she had trouble believing anyone would willingly do that; sentence dozens of children who had done nothing wrong to die. Godric had no such qualms. He jumped up, shouting, "You Dark, lying, misbegotten little snake. To think, I once trusted you, would have been proud to call you brother. First the Dark Arts; now this. You betray us; ask us to murder children in cold blood.

Salazar made no move to curse him. All his planning had failed. There was nothing he could do now. The plague of children that would slow the learning pace to a crawl and drain the school of its funds would come, regardless. The wizarding world would be dependent on the muggle world, bound too closely, closer then they had been in Rome, poised to fall should England collapse. Considering that Rome fell, England didn't seem to have a good chance at survival.

He would ban Muggle-borns from his house, of course, but even then it wouldn't help too much. All the houses received instructions at the same pace, and if three-quarters of the population found Muggle-borns acceptable, than it would take a shrewder politician than him to find a way to separate the worlds.

He didn't defend himself as Godric continued shouting at him and Helga told him how disappointed she was with him.

Rowena simply said, "You argument had merit, and perhaps it is a mistake to allow muggleborns to come here, but you misled us and destroyed our trust in you a second time. Besides, my grandmother was a muggleborn. I'm willing to believe that some, perhaps even most, muggleborns will have a hard time keeping up; however, my grandmother is one of the wisest and cleverest people I have ever known. Some times it's worth digging through mud to find a Galleon."

Something about that comment irritated him, and he snapped back without thinking, "I hope you enjoy digging through your mudbloods looking for that golden child."

That in turn pushed Godric over the edge, and this time it was Salazar who was being held at wand-point.

"Leave. Now. I don't want to hear any more of your lies."

Salazar complied.

**Cliffhangerish... to find out what Salazar did afterwards, you have to read my stories... only thats sort of cruel, since I'm not going to get to that for a long time in Mirror Image, and an even longer time in Two Sides of the Same Coin. **

**If I get more than ten reveiws for this, I'll write up what happened next and add it to this... if you really, really want another chapter, you can review my other stories, (preferably Mirror Image... the summary sounds really bizare, but it's really the better of the two, at least in my opinion... I really have put in a lot more time and effort planning it), and at the end of your review say that you want me to post another chapter for this, and I'll count that towards the total. **

**Otherwise I'll probably just add it whenever I get to the point in Mirror Image where I need to write it. **

**I'm not just being one of those people that begs for reviews, and blackmails people into giving them, I swear... though I am shamelessly advertising my other stories... I just want to know how much people like this, since I'm really busy, and I'm writting two different things besides this, and I'm a really slow writer, and if no one likes this then I don't see any point in writing for this instead of something that people are actually reading. **

**And I don't believe that a hit count is an accurate judge of anything, since people might be clicking on it and hating it. **

**And there is a reason that Tom Riddle was put as the second main character... It will be relevent if I post a second chapter. **


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